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No More Drama: China’s TV Insiders Lash Out at Censorship During Legislative Gathering

Actor and director Zhang Guoli in a scene from the reality show “Let’s Go.”

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The Chinese public is mourning the government’s recent tightening of restrictions on TV content — and so are several of the country’s most famous TV professionals, who are voicing their frustration during China’s annual legislative meetings in Beijing.

Zhang Guoli, one of China’s best-known actors and producers, said Monday that he and his peers had started to back away from making TV dramas due to increased government restrictions.

“From submitting an application to the final censorship, you have to negotiate with and get the nod from each relevant government department,” said Mr. Zhang, who is behind several of China’s highest-rated TV dramas. “It’s getting increasingly hard.”

Mr. Zhang was speaking at a panel on arts and literature organized by the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body.

China’s regulators require that TV drama producers have their content approved by specific government departments if their show is related to a certain field, such as national security or the medical industry.

“So, now I’ve turned to making reality TV shows,” Mr. Zhang said. Reality shows have been one of the most-watched TV genres in China in recent years. Mr. Zhang is the chief director of “Let’s Go,” a program that places several actors in a historical setting and presents them with challenges such as eating raw meat or drilling wood to make fire.

A scene from the reality show “Let’s Go.”

3C Media

Gao Mantang, a veteran TV screenwriter who is behind several hit shows, said at the same panel on Monday that he was asked to get permission from six central government departments when producing “Family on the Go” (2012), a drama that won the hearts and tears of many Chinese viewers.

The show tells the story of self-made businesspeople in Wenzhou, a coastal Chinese city famous for its entrepreneurs.

Mr. Gao said he was told to get permission from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a character in the drama who is a migrant worker and travels abroad and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce for two scenes showing a street vendor getting caught by local market regulators.

He was also told to speak with the National Energy Administration, the Ministry of Land and Resources and the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party’s Central Committee about a lead character who moves to northern China to extract oil and the Ministry of Commerce about a mention in the drama of “a clueless farmer who travels to France to start a small business.”

“These government departments have no branch to take care of censorship, so we had to carry our discs and knock on each of their doors,” said Mr. Gao, describing the censors and broadcasters as “evasive” and lacking responsibility.

State broadcaster CCTV, which aired “Family on the Go,” and the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, China’s media regulator, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

It isn’t the first time that TV professionals have voiced frustration with China’s censorship at the country’s annual legislative meetings. But this year, as some delegates put it, raising the topic is getting “very dangerous” and considered “trouble-making” amid a broader clampdown on expression.

Two state-backed industry associations also recently released “production guidelines” for TV dramas, barring scenes such as those addressing homosexual love or one-night stands.

While Mr. Zhang has criticized the new restrictions, he hasn’t voiced a complete aversion to censorship: The actor drew an online backlash after state broadcaster CCTV quoted him on its verified Weibo microblog as having voiced support for strengthened restrictions on online content at another CPPCC panel last week.

In a comment on his Weibo account that later appeared to have been deleted, Mr. Zhang poked fun at himself as having become “a bad guy” in China’s literary and arts circles for voicing support for the restrictions.

In comments to China Real Time on the sidelines of Monday’s meetings, Mr. Zhang described the difference as one between TV and online. Censorship of domestic TV content is “too complicated,” he maintained. But on the Internet, foreign dramas have long enjoyed more lax supervision than domestic ones — thus, Chinese authorities should ramp up their censorship of those programs in order to level the playing field, he said.

The tightened censorship over TV shows that address real-life issues has been pushing more producers to make fantasy or historic costume dramas, which accounted for more than half of the top-ten rated TV dramas on provincial satellite channels last year, according to Nielsen-CCdata, a Beijing-based data company.

Still, many are making anti-Japanese shows, a staple of Chinese television, which are increasingly coming under fire from the public for their often-unreasonable plotlines.

“When I can watch our actors stamp on helmets of Japanese soldiers and then do several somersaults, I think it hurts my self-esteem and reflects the weakness of our nation,” said Mr. Gao.